agency and ideology in the service provision of islamic organizations in the southern suburb of...

8/11/2019 Agency and Ideology in the Service Provision of Islamic Organizations in the Southern Suburb of Beirut, Lebanon

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This paper has not been revised by UNESCO ; it is a draft discussion paper thatwas presented during the conference on "NGOs and governance in the ArabCountries" in Cairo, 29-31 March 2000. A final publication (book) is in preparation.

The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author and do notnecessarily reflect the views of UNESCO.

NGO and Governance

In Arab Countries

March 29-31, 2000

AGENCY AND IDEOLOGY IN THE SERVICE PROVISION OF ISLAMIC ORGANIZATIONS

in the Southern Suburb of Beirut, Lebanon

Mona M. Fawaz

Massachusetts Institute of [email protected]


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AGENCY AND IDEOLOGY IN THE SERVICE PROVISION OF ISLAMIC ORGANIZATIONS

in the Southern Suburb of Beirut, Lebanon

by

Mona M Fawaz

ABSTRACT

This study is centered around the relationship between a cluster of Islamic NGOs and the localcommunity in the southern suburb of Beirut. These NGOs were organized around a strong religiousIslamic identity and are openly supportive ofHizbAllahs resistance activities in South Lebanon.

Overtime, these NGOs became the backbone of service provision of the southern suburb of Beirut and

enrolled a large number of local residents in their organizations. The organizations managed thisperformance through targeting urgent community needs such as drinking water and garbage collection,including residents within the NGOs, and adopting a language that would appeal to residents by

validating their frustrations and struggles for social justice and national liberation.By examining one of the organizations structures, the volunteer sisters (Al Akhawat al

Moutatawiat), and one of the projects, self-sufficiency, the paper argues that structural agency

mechanisms and the ideological tools both played key roles in developing the responsive and sustainablesystem of service provision of these organizations. My main findings indicate that the decentralized,flexible, easily accessible, and locally adapted structures of these organizations allowed for a close

relation between NGOs and their beneficiaries. In addition, the close-up examination shows that ideology

is a central component of these organizations performance in how it is used to generate a sense ofmission, an aura, a language, and an organizational culture, elements that all play a major role within an

organization.In this choice of research topic, the paper attempts to challenge the existing accepted definition of

NGOs in order to re-include a group of institutions often dismissed as political. My findings are

based on qualitative data, in particular interviews with NGO workers, local residents, and public and

private sector agencies who have been involved in the southern suburbs system of service provision.They are also based on various documents and studies developed around this zone over the past twodecades.


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Table of Contents

1. Introduction 5

Methodology 7Context of the Study: Political and Geographic . 7

2. Islamic Resistance NGOs 10

NGOs Description .. 10(i) Origins and Political Ideology.... 10

(ii) Types of organizations and services .. 12(iii) Funding .. 13(iv) The State .. 14

3. Self-Sufficiency Projects 16

(i) Bread Making...... 16(ii) Sewing ...... 17

(iii) Others .. 18

(iv) Assessment .. 19

4. Volunteer sisters(i) Social Workers .. 22(ii) Task Description 22

(iii) Origins of the Structure 24

5. Conclusions 27

Figure 1: Map of Beirut and its Suburbs


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Introduction

For almost twenty years now, Islamic organizations have made the front pages in the worlds

media, particularly in mainstream western news agencies. Deploying words like terrorism and

extremism, these media often portray the activities of Islamic organizations such as HizbAllah,Hamas

as singularly extremist and violent acts executed by brain-washed members.1This negative assessment

has not only diffused into popular culture but has also colored academic works, including the

development literature, which has in general neglected to document any of the projects, working

mechanisms, or approach to poverty alleviation pursued by Islamic NGOs. It has instead focused on

whether they fit within definitions of civil society or not, and commonly blamed them for the

destruction of this civil society in the countries where they have operated.2In these works, if Islamic

NGOs are mentioned, whether in Lebanon, Egypt, Sudan, or Palestine, their projects and services are

often described as political co-optation. Ironically, the following definition taken from CNN, a

mainstream US news agency, is a good description: Hezbollah3(Party of God) -- an Iranian-sponsored

Shiite Muslim faction based in Lebanon [] has sowed support in Beirut's Shiite Muslim, southern

suburbs bycreating a social welfare system. 4

Throughout the countries where they have worked, and as their growing popular support

indicates, arrays of Islamic NGOs have spread in large numbers and developed often intricate and

complex networks of service provision. In Lebanon, where Islamic movements have been significantly

present since 1982, Islamic NGOs have provided arrays of services that encompassed health care,

education, drinking water provision, garbage collection, income generation initiatives, and many others.

They have also placed local resident members, often largely demobilized previously, into positions where

they can actually act on their poor living conditions by shaping their own process of service provision and

organizing for their rights. Despite their record in Lebanon, these NGOs have received the same

dismissive treatment mentioned above. For example, the 1997 UNDP (United Nations Development

Program) Lebanon report does not carry a single mention of these NGOs in its list of Lebanese service

1This literature is extremely abundant in American mainstream media, for example the New York Times, the

Boston Globe and many others. For other sources, check Barsky 1995, Lamchichi 1995, or Miller 1997.2For example, see Lesch, 1996.3There is no one way of writing HizbAllahs name, the reason why I adopted this orthography is because of thetwo parts that suggest clearly the world Allah (God in Arabic) as separate from Hizb (party, in Arabic).4CNN,: Struggle for Peace Homepage (emphasis added).

(http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/struggle_for_peace/key_players.html#palestinians)


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providing NGOs.5In the literature on Arab NGOs, these organizations are also often deliberately

dismissed as political work or reactions to poverty and never examined as service providers on their own.

This study attempts to provide a dose of correction to this strong bias by building an

understanding of the process of community development initiated by Islamic NGOs in Lebanon,

specifically in the southern suburb of Beirut, and in terms of community mobilizing and service

provision. It also seeks to challenge the perception that politics cant or shouldnt mingle with service

provision. While this argument has been made for international humanitarian (relief) organizations

(Weiner 1998), it still lags behind in the examination of service providers, especially with small-scale

local NGOs (Edwards and Hulme 1994).

In the choice of Islamic NGOs in my case study, I also aim to point-out and challenge another

bias in the development literature. Indeed, in its choice of case study and the description of NGOs, the

literature has often emphasized a particular class of NGOs that are not, or which claim not to be

politicized or religious. It has therefore traditionally excluded a large class of service providers such as,

besides Islamic NGOs, the Liberation Theology groups in Latin America, a number of African-American

churches in the US, and probably many other similar cases. However, all these groups have at times been

efficient service providers and community organizers all around the world. Thus, in defining the

organizations I am studying as NGOs, I make a conscious choice to challenge the existing definitions, and

apply, in my case study, some of the same analytical lenses usually applied to NGOs while I also

introduce other frameworks that in my opinion would often be useful in less visibly politicized groups.

After a brief general introduction of the NGOs, the paper looks closely at the operating

mechanisms of these NGOs and argues that these organizations have used a combination of ideology and

agency (structure) as mechanisms to further responsive and flexible performance. The analysis will be

conducted through a focus on one type of projects, self-sufficiency projects, and one organization

structure, volunteer sisters (Al akhawat al moutataweaat). Projects and structures are examined by way

of showing how both agency and ideology are used by these organizations and how they impact their

performance.

The paper is organized as follows. After this general introduction, I will present the case study

though its geographic and political background. In the next section, I describe in further details cluster of

NGOs and the types of services they have been undertaking and elaborate on self-sufficiency projects.

Then, I highlight and examine closely one specific structure of these organizations, the volunteer sisters

that I will use to highlight the processes of negotiation that occur between these NGOs in Lebanon and

their counterparts in Iran, and the role of structure/ agency and ideology in furthering service provision.

Finally, in the conclusion, I summarize my main points and touch on the particular political dimension

5UNDP report on Lebanon, August 1997.


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that these NGOs have introduced to the southern suburb of Beirut. I also look at the shortcomings and

limitations that these institutions have to overcome.

Methodology in brief

I conducted the fieldwork necessary for this research during summer 1997 and December-January

1998. Almost all the fieldwork was conducted in the southern suburbs of Beirut where the headquarters of

all these organizations were located.

I adopted open-ended qualitative questions as a format for the interviews conducted with

residents, NGO members, political party members, government officials and employees and planners who

have worked on the southern suburbs of Beirut. My analysis is also based on documents and evaluations

conducted primarily by the Research and Documentation Center (CCSD), a research center located in the

southern suburb of Beirut, informally affiliated to Islamic NGOs and HizbAllah. The center carries

surveys of Lebanese areas populated with Lebanese Shiite communities and maintains a library and

archives compiling data related mainly to the same areas. I also use the evaluation reports and pamphlets

of these NGOs themselves in order to draw figures and details of their work. Finally, I use the figures and

stories compiled by a private planning office, the Bureau Technique dUrbanisme et des Travaux Publics

(BTUTP), located in the vicinity of City and its southern suburb, which has undertaken a number of

projects in my study area, especially a large scale study to improve the infrastructure system, at the end of

the civil war, between 1991 and 1993. This papers conclusions are mainly tested through my personal

observations of the area over the past years, as a resident of Beirut.

Context of the Study

Lebanon, and the southern suburbs of Beirut

Two main events mark Lebanons recent history, its civil war (1975-1991) and the struggle with

Israel (including the declaration of the Zionist State in 1948, the influx of Palestinian refugees, the

bombing since 1948 and the occupation of South Lebanon since 1978). While my aim is far from

elaborating a discussion of this tumultuous history, it is important here to connect these events to the

emergence ofHizbAllahin 1982 and its evolution from a marginalized military group into one of the

leading political parties in the country, the leader of the military resistance against Israel, with twelve

representatives in the Lebanese parliament and several officially affiliated mayors. Indeed, HizbAllahs

history is strongly connected to local and regional struggles.

It is clear today that unequal regional development (development focused solely on Beirut),

correlated with the systematic neglection of a number of religious communities who were predominantly

rural, was one of the main factors that precipitated the country towards the military strife. The Shiites,


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among whom 80% were rural at that time, constituted a large section of these neglected communities

(Nasr 1985). As of the mid-sixties, a growing number among them rallied behind Imam Musa es-Sadrs

movement for social justice and resistance to Israel (Norton 1987, Nasr 1985). This early local

mobilization movement, constituted later one of the largest pools of organization thatHizbAllah could

build on (Norton 1987).

HizbAllah emerged in 1982 as an offshoot/ reaction of the Israeli occupation of the country and

immediately declared military resistance to Israel (FadlAllah 1994). With this call, it immediately

revived earlier mobilization groups movements and rallied along their lines.HizbAllahs role, however,

transcends the local boundaries. UnlikeImam Musa es-Sadrs movement which called for changes in the

lebanses governance structures,HizbAllah has a wider regional affiliation that make him an integral part

of the Islamic (Iranian) revolution.6It has adopted in its ideological and philosophical orientations Islam

as a mode of life and declared that it is engaged in a struggle to apply Islamic precepts within the general

current that seeks to build an Islamic society (FadlAllah 1994: 36).

The organizations this paper addresses grew within this same political environment and historical

path. They were also affected in their creation and their operations by the same historical and political

events. Before we look at them with more details, however, we will introduce the geographic context of

their activities.

Southern suburbs of Beirut

The southern suburb of Beirut is a zone of 16sq.km extending on the outskirts of Municipal

Beirut, between the International Airport, the Mediterranean Sea, and the large industrial zone of

Choueifat.7This area houses a very high concentration of residents, which reaches over 1000 person/ha in

Palestinian camps and in a number of informal settlements at the fringes such asHay el SellomorLaylaki

(see attached map).

This high density of residents and the poverty of the area are relatively new features of the

southern suburb of Beirut. Indeed, less then fifty years ago, the area was still predominantly agricultural

land and gradually moved first to house (until the early seventies) a middle class, religiously mixed

population who had been locally rooted for decades (Yahya 1994). However, the areas relatively cheaper

land prices and unregulated access made it the logical destination of many rural migrants. The civil

military conflict (1975) and the Israeli invasion of parts of South Lebanon (1978) precipitated migration

6Although the Islamic revolution occurred in Iran and carries, hence, a geographic specificity, it carries within its

ideology and philosophy a strong expansionist push that transcends the local country-boundaries. For a detaileddescription of this movement, see FadlAllah 1990.7Beirut Municipal area is 17.2sq.km (for the same population).


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to this area (Bourgey 1985).8The civil war also lead to the subdivision of Lebanon, especially the

metropolitan area of its capital city, into homogeneous sectarian religious enclaves controlled by militias

of the same sects. The southern suburb of Beirut eventually became the logical destination of the

displaced Shiites. During the years of civil war, most of Beirut Citys growth was contained in this

enclave (BTUTP 1993, Bourgey 1985).

By 1985, ten years after the beginning of the civil war, the population of the southern suburb of

Beirut had more then doubled and became almost exclusively Shiite. It went from 140,000 inhabitants in

1969 to around 526,000 in 1993, accounting for at least 1/6th of the Lebanese population9(excluding the

Palestinian camps).10It also became almost exclusively Lebanese of the Shiite sect, thus moving from

32.8% in 1973 to above 90% in 1998 (BTUTP 1993, CCSD 1997). Simultaneously, during these years of

war, the per-income capita of Lebanese citizens dropped by 2/3, especially after the 1982 Israeli invasion

of Beirut that heavily damaged the economic infrastructure of the country (World Bank: 1997). Since the

southern suburb of Beirut is visibly poorer then the rest of city, one expects its indicators to be even

lower. According to a 1997 study of one particularly poor neighborhood of the suburbs, todays per

income capita in this area (US $410) is barely 14% of the countrys indicator (US $2, 970) (CCSD1997).

Unequal regional development was also manifested in the neglection of the suburbs of the capital

city that were transformed into strongholds of rural migrants. Long before and during the years of civil

war, and in compliance with its policy of neglection, the Lebanese government kept a minimal

involvement in the service provision of some of the poorest rural areas of the country. Between 1965 and

1982, Public Agencies did not initiate any major public project in the southern suburb of Beirut. In fact,

with the exception of a few decrees relative to enlarging streets, not a single public intervention was even

planned in the area. Furthermore, during the years of the civil war, especially in the eighties, this policy

was further accentuated with a series of attempts initiated at the Central State level to evict informal

residents from the area (40%)11

and reduce its density (El Kak Harb 1996, Sharafeddine 1985, Yahya

1994).

The absence of the Lebanese State in providing services and the poverty of the residents opened

spaces in the suburbs for various political parties to win the support of residents by providing these

8People flew other suburbs that were then controlled by Christian militias or they flew rural areas, mostly the South

and the Bekaa, where Israeli warplanes and aggressions were the most active.9This figure represents roughly 1/4th of the Beirut Metropolitan area residents. Some statistics affirm that the

Southern Suburbs contain 700,000 people but since there has been no official census in Lebanon since 1932, there is

really no definite figure.10

I have excluded the Palestinian camps from this study because they have until lately related to the jurisdiction of

UNRWA, the United Nation Relief and Works Agency and do not closely relate to services provided by these NGOs

in the Southern suburb of Beirut.11This is a controversial figure presented by Sharafeddine. This percentage in fact depends on the definitions andtypes of informal processes in place.


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missing services. Between 1975 and 1991, a very large number of political groups entered the lives of

residents of the southern suburbs of Beirut city (e.g.Amal,Progressive Socialist Party). Most of them

provided at some point or another services to the community. Similarly, international and national,

secular and religious NGOs attempted at various phases to fill up this need. The Islamic NGOs I am

describing were part of these service providers. This research attests to how, over the past years, they

have materialized their interventions with actual community mobilization and civic involvement.12

ISLAMIC RESISTANCE NGOS

A general description

A cluster of over fifteen Islamic NGOs, all based in the southern suburb of Beirut, have

coordinated, cooperated, and complemented their activities in order to develop and operate an active and

complex network of service provision. Because there is more then one breed of Islamic NGOs inLebanon, and since this study is limited to the Islamic NGOs that explicitly support HizbAllahs

resistance in South Lebanon, I will refer to these NGOs as Islamic resistance NGOs in the rest of the

paper. All of these Islamic resistance NGOs are officially registered non-governmental organizations or

charities. They are all registered with the Lebanese Ministry of Interior and abide by Lebanese laws that

regulate non-profit organizations.13

These NGOs differ from most others in two key aspects. First, they all flaunt an openly political

and religious identity. This open politicized identity differs from the more common representation of

NGOs in the literature as non-politicized autonomous service providers who do not get involved in

(corrupting) political activities. In fact, this politicization goes against some of the basic perceived relative

advantages of NGOs over the State: NGOs are independent from voting processes and are therefore able

to provide "non-clientelistic" and more "dedicated" services (Berg 1987). Instead, Islamic NGOs in the

southern suburb of Beirut have used their political affiliations as an inherent part of their activities.

First, these NGOs are Islamic, i.e. they are part of the Islamic dynamic (Al hala al

Islamiyyah), the current trend of Islamic awakening that has been spreading in South-West Asia for

almost half a century. This movement urges for the revival of Islamic values and rule in most aspects of

daily life, especially in governance. It transcends the boundaries of particular countries to build a strong

pan-Islamic call in the entire region (South-West Asia). Hence, all these NGOs have strong affinity to the

Islamic values promoted by the Iranian revolution and locally, byHizbAllah. Since they have developed

12I reconstructed most of this history through interviews with residents and planners whove worked in the area.13The NGOs are all registered however under different, generic names. It is important to note here that under

Lebanese law, registration of non-governmental organizations is restricted to a declaration of foundation, and does

not require the sanctioning of the State.


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as offshoots of the Islamic dynamic, all these NGOs are strongly imbued in the values and precepts of

the Islamic revolution. This is obvious, for example, in the advertisement pamphlets of these

organizations that invariably include a picture ofKhomeini (the late leader of the Islamic revolution) and

an acknowledgment of his central role in their inception.

These NGOs also portray themselves as resistance organizations. They support openly the

military resistance to Israeli occupation led byHizbAllahin South Lebanon. NGO offices are plastered

with pictures of martyrs, resistance fighters killed in the line of duty. In fact, these organizations perceive

their tasks as complementary and intrinsic to the resistance movement lead by HizbAllahs resistance in

sustaining and strengthening civilians in times of war. They claim to be building a resistance society.

The resistance society, Hajj Kassem Aleik, head of one of these NGOs explained, is our vision. It is

the task to build a society that will refuse oppression and fight for its rights. All the rest -water provision,

garbage collection, agricultural training- is only a working strategy.14

Second, these NGOs also differ from other NGOs in the literature because most have their origins

in a foreign community from which they were transposed. In fact, they organizations were almost all

created by either mother or model NGOs based in Iran and they all reproduced inside the southern

suburb of Beirut, a cluster of organizations that had developed earlier in Iran, in the years following the

Islamic revolution (1979). The NGOs in Lebanon reproduce the division of tasks, the classification of

beneficiaries, and even carry the same names of the Iranian NGOs. They are thus duplicates of an existing

sophisticated model of service provision that has been gradually re-adapted to fit local circumstances.

One can only understand this dynamic formation in light of the Islamic dynamic (the hala Islamiyyah),

and its call for transcendence over countrys boundaries to build a pan-Islamic movement across borders,

lead by Khomeini, the leader of the Islamic revolution. The following section details the various types of

organizations that were formed in this process.

Classification

Over the past twelve years, Islamic resistance NGOs have closely cooperated and complemented

each others tasks to tangibly improve the areas (health, educational, urban) services and living

conditions. In the following paragraphs, I place the NGOs in one of two categories, according to the

services they provide and the communities they target.

(i)

The large service providers: This class of NGOs is designed to respond to particular

types of needs such as healthcare, education, or urban services for entire

neighborhoods. Among these organizations,Jihad Al Binaa (literary translated into

Jihad in Construction)is a development and construction NGO that has undertaken,

among other tasks, garbage collection, drinking water provision, and other large-scale


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functions. All of these services were provided timely in response to urgent needs of the

residents. For example, this NGO undertook garbage collection during the last years of

civil war (1988-1991), in a number of districts in the southern suburbs where municipal

services were halted. The NGO also provided water at a time when a severe water

shortage crisis was leaving the entire area without drinking water. The organization has

since then provided drinking water for free to a portion of the southern suburbs residents

through ninety-six water tanks of around 2sq.m capacity each, distributed gradually in the

southern suburbs since 1990 and refilled once or twice daily by six water cisterns.15 More

recently,Jihad al Binaahas initiated an environmental branch that seeks the

embellishment of the area by designing public squares and other common open spaces

in the suburb. There are many other NGOs in this category. For example,Al Hayaa Al

Sahhiyyah(the Health Committee) provides health care services through a hospital it runs

in the southern suburb and through various dental clinics (since 1987) and health care

centers (the first was inaugurated in 1985) spread around the southern suburb of Beirut.

Another example isJameyat Taaleem Al Dini Al Islami(the Islamic Educational

Organization), which runs a number of schools as well as educational and training

programs (theAl Mustapha high-schools are among the largest and most efficient schools

today).

(ii) The NGOs targeting specific beneficiary groups: These NGOs are designed to cater for

the multiple needs of specific target groups, rather then the entire community.

Specifically, the three NGOs in this category have a large outreach among the poorest

segments of the community, who have been most severely impacted by the 16-year civil

war (1975-1991) and the continuing Israeli occupation of Lebanon (since 1978). These

are the war martyrs and their families, targeted by Al Shaheed(the Martyr), the war

wounded and their families, targeted byAl Jareeh (the Wounded), and the resourceless

members to whomAl Imdad(the Resource) caters to.

The oldest among these NGOs isAl Shaheed. It was founded in 1982, almost

simultaneously withHizbAllahand was soon followed by the two other organizations.

All three NGOs provide the same types of services, namely health care, food subsidies,

education, training, and micro-credit. The latter two services are part of an overarching

self-sufficiency program thatAl Imdadhas been promoting in the area.

14Personal interview, conducted in July 1997.


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Funding

In their funding, all the service providing NGOs have relied on the same sources. In their initial

phase, they all depended largely on Iranian funding to operate, either directly from their mother

organization or indirectly, throughHizbAllah. Today, they have moved to rely mostly on a number of

local sources. Hence, these NGOs are mostly funded by theKhums, theZakkatand the Sadaka, all forms

of religious contributions (obligatory) paid by Shiite Muslims to the poor.16Through these religious

channels, Islamic NGOs receive funds from within the local community but also from rich Lebanese

expatriates and other Arab donors. The money is either directly collected by NGOs or collected in the

central office, the office of Sayyed Hassan NasrAllah, the official representative of the Waly al Faqi

Sayyed Ali Khamenee, from which it is redistributed to NGOs. In addition, these NGOs appeal directly

to occasional donors through boxes distributed around the country. Finally, most of these organizations

have income generation projects, such as resorts or contracting companies that operate anonymously

within the private sector and generate profit that is channeled into their services.

Within this general notion of foreign creation and funding, relationships between local and model

NGOs vary. Some of these NGOs, such asAl ShaheedorAl Imdad are secondary branches of mother

NGOs in Iran. They report to their respective base in Iran and adopt policies from their own Iranian-based

mother NGO (Unknown,Al Ataa).The Lebanese branches of this group of NGOs are also partially

funded by the Iranian mother organization. At the same time, another group of NGOs have no

administrative attachments to or financial dependence on their respective model organizations in Iran.

In their creation, they have adopted the name and experience of the Iranian organization but, in their tasks

and policies, they do not follow the same projects or the same structure as the Iranian institution they

were modeled after. These are, for example,Jihad Al BinaaandAl Hayaa Al Sahia. These NGOs also

differ among each other. Hence,Jihad Al Binaawas first created by and affiliated to the Iranian

organizationJihad Al Binaa whileAl Hayaa Al Sahiastemmed out of the local first-aid volunteer

groups who later adopted the foreign organizations umbrella and nomination. Today, both of these

organizations share the same relationship with their Iranian counterpart, which amount mostly to sharing

experiences and development lessons. These NGOs are in fact directly affiliated toHizbAllahand abide

by its decision-making. WhileHizbAllahdoes not intervene directly in their tasks, it still looks at the

general NGO strategy, such as in its choice of undertaking or dropping large-scale projects.

15The NGO purchases the water from the Beirut Public Water Agency (a State Agency) for a nominal symbolic

fee and redistributes it on those tanks.16TheKhumusand theZakat are religiously mandated percentages on income that all Muslim Shiites are mandated

to pay for poor members of their communities. They are generally channeled through religious institutions. The

Sadaka is a benevolent and unspecified amount of money, similar to a donation.


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The NGOs and the State

The relation of Islamic resistance NGOs to the State is complex and ambiguous and warrants

several research projects by itself. Indeed, listening to the language of NGO workers, it seems that a large

dose of antagonism characterizes their relation of the State. It is not rare to hear NGO workers blaming

the States discriminatory development policies, corruption and incapacity. The Government, one NGO

director told me, is acting like a private company. Civil servants contract their own companies to

develop the projects that could generate profit for them and not for the citizens. Throughout my

interviews, these comments were very recurrent. NGO workers often blamed the State for its lack of

presence, for neglecting the poor Lebanese residents and for excluding them from the Lebanese post-civil

war reconstruction process. On the other hands, state agents also severely criticize the organizations and

dismiss their services as entirely political.

The antagonistic language however does not exclude cooperation in several spheres, such as in

water distribution where the NGOs buy out at a subsidized price, water from the Public Water Agency. In

addition, since 1998, a number of the former workers in these NGOs have run municipal elections and

occupy positions in municipal councils or are mayors themselves. Many of the activities they mayors

undertake are continuations of their earlier activities in the NGOs.17

The projects these organizations have been running are mostly successful because of their

responsiveness to residents needs and capacities. This responsiveness is only possible because of the

structures of the organizations and the ideology they uphold that together provide a peculiar but

responsive platform of service provision and the ability of the organizations to depart from the Iranian

model and forge structures that are more adequate to the local situation. Islamic resistance NGOs portray

an interestingly decentralized, easily approachable structure endowed with a strong outreach apparatus

that developed the close relation that existed between residents inside the NGOs and outside them and

blurred the limits that existed between them. They have hence attracted, over time, a large number of

residents from the southern suburbs and are today entirely staffed by residents of the area. Their

involvement varies from a desire to enroll inHizbAllah activities or in the Islamic movement, more

generally, to a commitment to upgrading their neighborhoods. In addition, these organizations have built

on their political ideology a sense of mission, an aura, a culture, and a language all proper to them and

capable of strongly improving their services.

17In the intervention he gave at the Centre dEtude et de Recherche du Moyen-Orient Contemporain (CERMOC) in

April 1999, Hajj Abu Said Khansa, the Ghobeiri Mayor and a former NGO worker described the activities if his

municipality. They were strikingly similar to those of the NGOs.


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Two elements strongly explain the performance these NGOs were able to attain: agency and

ideology. These elements appear in the NGOs designs themselves and in the way they organized their

projects. Given the scale and number of these organizations, it would be impossible to introduce and

analyze their activities in one short paper/ presentation. However, and as stated in the introduction, I will

show in the next two sections, through a close examination of one type of project, the self-sufficiency

projects, and one type of institution, the volunteer sisters, how these mechanisms operated. Specifically,

I use self-sufficiency projects in order to highlight how these organizations were responsive to

beneficiaries and how they could identify and build on local skills. I also show how ideology facilitated

their process of service distribution and how it also enlarged the scope of their activities. I use the

volunteer structures in order to illustrate the nature of the relation NGOs established with their

beneficiaries, and describe the decentralized, accessible, and flexible structure that allowed for this

relationship and the sense of mission and glitters of respect that ideology encouraged. The structure of

volunteer sisters also brings evidences on the negotiation processes between various levels of NGO

governance and between local NGOs and their Iranian counterparts.


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3. SELF-SUFFICIENCY PROJECTS

Next to generic, citywide highly visible service provision projects, Islamic resistance

organizations have been running a number of well-targeted training and micro-credit programs. These

projects are important in reflecting the intricate combination of agency and ideology, specifically the

flexibility and accessibility of projects, the capacity to build on local skills, the tightness of the NGO-

beneficiary relation as well as the role of ideology in providing a critical framework and a philosophy to

the way service provision is carried out.

The [financial] self-sufficiency projects are targeted income generation projects carried out by

organizations such asAl ImdadandAl Shaheed. They include tasks like bread-making, cooking, sewing,

carpet making, hairdressing, mini-stores and many more. These projects are usually initiated at the

demand of a local family who either has a special skill that its members believe they could use, or

alternatively, have an idea that they need to develop or fund. Over the past years, the organizations have

come to provide them with the loans, the tools and/or the training they require to develop that income

generating capacity. In the following paragraphs, I will detail some of these projects and their relationship

to the community they serve.

The bread-making initiative

A good illustration of self-sufficiency projects is the bread making initiative. The bread

initiative was started withAl Imdad, one of the Islamic Resistance NGOs, who sought to provide a means

of livelihood for Umm Hassan, a woman whose husband is absent. She was identified by the organization

through a report from her neighbors. Umm Hassan wanted to work while staying at home with her

newborn. When Abu Fadi, the self-sufficiency representative fromAl Imdad, asked Umm Hassan what

she could do, she said she could bake bread. She was referring here to the rural Arab bread, which is

baked using traditional methods. The NGO gave her the oven for free and provided her with a loan for gas

and raw materials. There is no interest on this loan because the Islamic law, the Shariaa, forbids charging

interest. The woman had to repay her loan over a period of ten months. The NGO did not require a

collateral since NGO workers consider the social informal ties they have with members of the community

as sufficient to guarantee the loan. Over the past two years, Umm Hassan has been baking bread daily. In

the beginning, a social worker from the organization helped her distribute it in local restaurants. Since

then, she has agreed with a neighbor to distribute the bread for her. At the time of our visit, a social

worker from the organization was training her eldest son to do the distribution himself. The bread gave

Umm Hassan the money to sustain her family and to further repay her loan on time, which she did. Abu

Fadi, the self-sufficiency representative, explained to us that the organization had allocated part of its

yearly budget to do local small-scale projects. After seeing Umm Hassans success, the organization had


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been able to replicate it in a number of other cases where women with similar skills were also able to earn

a living.

Sewing projects

Another example of income generation initiatives is sewing projects. In these projects, the

organizations give families a sewing machine for free. A large body of literature argues for the

distribution of non-perishable assets and durable goods such as land or equipment as a longer term and

more sustainable solution to poverty alleviation. Unlike food distribution and income transfer programs,

which are generally seen as emergency relief solutions, non-perishable goods such as a sewing machine,

provide a useful income-generation asset that help poor people develop their own source of living (Sen

1987 and 1996). Within this context, the organizations seek to distribute sewing machines to residents as

a way to support the families efforts to attain financial self-sufficiency.

As in the bread-making initiative, the organization grants the family the necessary loan to buy its

first round materials necessary for start up. Here too, loans are interest free and time of return is generally

spread around 10 months. Sometimes, this grant is combined with training for one or more family

members to develop her sewing skills18. Sewing projects are particularly interesting because the

organizations have managed to create a market for the families products within the Islamic schools in the

country. For example, the schools and the summer training center run byAl Imdaduse children's school

costumes sewn by the beneficiary families of the organization. Through this process, the organization has

included indirectly the beneficiary families in the web of its own activities without having them be

directly affiliated to the organization. It has provided them with a real niche inside the NGO itself and

allowed them to become suppliers of the organization, and therefore, an integral part of its structure. The

NGO was hence able to considerably enlarge its outreach and support base.

Other Initiatives

There are many other types of self-sufficiency projects. Over the past ten years, the NGOs have

funded a number of mini-markets and local grocery stores spread around the area. I visited four of these

stores initiated byAl Imdad. Three of them began as small cigarette stands and grew into stores either

located in an old shipping container inside an informal settlement or in the front room of a familys house.

The measures to grant credit and the loans were similar to the other cases. However, in these projects, the

families often needed larger loans to start up a store. In order to receive this loan, both of these

organizations placed some conditions on their beneficiaries: They had to start up with a regular small loan

18Al Shaheedruns a training center in the Southern suburbs of Beirut. The center provides particularly young

women the proper training for sewing.


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with which they would put up a cigarette stand. Only after they have proved their credentials and repaid

this first loan will the NGO grant them the larger one. Through this process,Al Imdadgave the families

an incentive for repayment. Behind each of these cases was a story. The self-sufficiency representative of

Al Imdadwho accompanied us in the visits to these stores knew them all. While he worked with the

family to overcome its difficulties, the representative sought personal relationships to better understand

their conditions and needs.

What is remarkable about these projects is how the organizations have managed to build on

existing skills in the community and help members generate their own income and attain financial self-

sufficiency. It is very important for us not to impose on a family any type of work, explained Abu Fadi,

the head of the Beirut branch self-sufficiency unit ofAl Imdad. Instead, we encourage the families to

choose something themselves. We would rather build on their own skills whenever we can rather than

compel them to learn additional things. Unlike some of the employment generation projects, where

families are dragged into long training programs to be able to fit the structure of formal organizations or

find employment in a factory or enterprise by developing new skills,Al Imdads income generation

projects build on the existing indigenous capacities of the families they support. Besides respecting

residents decisions, the development literature has pointed to other positive aspects of these types of

projects. For one, the practice generates faster results in income generation since families do not have to

undergo a phase of training in a fresh skill at a time when they are struggling for survival. In this context,

training only makes sense if it has an immediate application and could open up new channels of income

generation. Therefore, the organization only resorts to training when residents want it themselves, and if

this new skill has proved to be needed in the market.

The hairdressing initiative is an example of demand-driven training programs. A number of

young women, tired from inactivity and seeking a way to improve their incomes, were interested in this

new skill and reported their interest to the organization.Al Imdadfunded and organized a local small-

scale temporary training center in the house of one of the beneficiary families and provided the program

for free. A volunteer worker in the organization, a hairdresser herself, took it upon herself to train the

seventeen young women who enrolled in the program. She and other volunteers had generated the idea in

the community and thus developed and supported it inside the NGO. For eight weeks, the volunteers in

the NGO ran the training program for six hours a day. When this training was through, only six of the

enrolled trainees were still interested in hairdressing as a business. Two of them applied for loans atAl

Imdadand received them to start up their businesses. Now, they are both running successful businesses

and one of them has even her own hairdressing salon.


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Assessing Income Generation Initiatives

The economical assessment of income generation projects offers ambivalent results. When

describing the success rate of the self-sufficiency initiatives, the General Director ofAl Imdadsaid that

only 25% of the projects made it. By success, the director meant that the family had achieved financial

self-sufficiency irrespective of whether it had managed to return its loan or not. The directors

calculations did not include the cost of labor and the many grants the local NGO had made to the projects.

It did not include the costs of medical services that the NGO also covered either. Taking the bread making

initiative for example,Al Imdads calculations excluded the price of the oven and the costs of distribution

and monitoring that were all incurred by the NGO. Yet, this project is considered among the NGO's most

successful initiatives.Al Imdadself-sufficiency projects loan default rate was not more successful since

it is as high as 80%. Many of the local grocery stores, for example, continued to expand until they reached

the point when they could not return their loans anymore. Only then did they stop and settle on stable

revenues that could cover their living costs without ever returning the loan. In all these cases, the NGOs

did not include the costs of following-up, training, conducting the initial feasibility studies it had led, or

even the loan deficit the family accumulated in assessing its success.

To those accustomed to working in or reading about income generating projects, the results of

these NGOs do not come as a surprise. Indeed, it is generally agreed in the field that it is unusual that

such projects yield significant income increase to the participants and that it is even more rare that true

economic benefits cover the costs of these projects; especially when they target the poorest residents

(Tendler 1982, Vivian and Maseko 1994, Adams and Pischke 1992). However, to the residents, many of

the projects present invaluable assets that the economic success or the efficiency of the projects do not

reflect, especially in challenging the status quo of dependency they had been confined to since moving in

from their rural areas.

In addition, the projects are always undertaken with a backing from structures of support

provided by some of the Islamic resistance NGOs, notablyAl Imdad,Al ShaheedandAl Jareeh,that

equip the beneficiary family with a safety net that consists of technical, emotional and financial support

and helps the family achieve its goals. First, the NGOs do not separate between their respective self-

sufficiency and social help wings. Most poor families often have health problems along with their

financial problems and could hardly make it if they had to bear all the costs of medication and daily needs

together. Therefore, as a first step, the NGOs provide them with health care while they insure their own

daily subsistence. Second, the NGOs provide vocational training to their beneficiaries when needed.

Training could be directly supplied by one of the organizations, like the hairdressing program lead by Al

Imdad, or through covering tuition fees in local institutes. Most of these training programs teach simple

trades and skills such as sewing, cooking, rug making, embroidery, and others. Building skills also


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includes guiding the first steps of the family in running a business. Therefore, whenAl Imdadprovides a

family with credit, the self-sufficiency representative who approves the credit monitors also the progress.

Throughout the process of building ties and challenging residents hopelessness, Islamic

resistance NGO workers not only physically support residents, as described in the previous section, but

also used a language and an approach to poverty alleviation that complements the supportive structures

with an appealing conceptual framework. NGO workers therefore speak of social justice, of

dispossession, and displacement. They have placed financial self-reliance in the context of challenging

existing power relationships in the city and redefining the control of resources among residents. This

definition of financial self sufficiency as a means and not a goal, and the position of such projects in the

context of strengthening the communities capacities to stand for its rights is at the heart of the NGOs

success.

Indeed, and as recognized increasingly in the literature, most NGOs that are thought of as

committed to equitable development have typically used words such as empowerment to mean

financial self-reliance. This idea is perhaps best documented by Vivian and Maseko in their assessment

of rural NGOs in Zimbabwe. The authors argued that many NGOs have adopted uncritically this

definition of empowerment from the political right wing, and have consequently reduced

empowerment to enrichment of individuals. These NGOs have therefore missed the more

fundamental definition of empowerment as a change in power and an increased control over ones own

resources. (Vivian and Maseko 1994 : 14-15).

Islamic NGOs have managed, in this context, to develop a more elaborate vision of self-

sufficiency that goes beyond an increase in financial means and have placed empowerment back in its

original political context.Al Imdad has viewed them as a way to increase the communitys control over its

own means of survival. The effect is to reduce the family's dependence on anyone, whether state or

NGOs. It is because we refuse to be insulted and oppressed anymore that we pursue these [self-

sufficiency] projects, a social worker explained. We are looking for our communities self-sufficiency

so we can build a real alternative where we are recognized as equals and truly respected. Indeed, as long

as it relies on external charity to survive, a community is unable to reclaim and enforce its own rights. On

the one hand, people preoccupied with basic survival are often unable to think beyond their daily food.

On the other hand, there are little chances that they can actually revolt against their scarce sources of

survival (Salmon 1987, Abers 1996). In that sense, and again in those workers understanding, self-

sufficiency projects are an essential part of the process of building a resistance society since they build

into the need fort such a society to reclaim its own means of subsistence.

This switch in the understanding of service recipients has been extremely important in the tasks

carried out by NGOs. For instance, the new language has allowed organizations to target specific groups


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inside the community and maximize its projects efficiency without the usual pitfalls of such initiatives.

Indeed, whereas accurate targeting is often a potential way of attacking a problem directly and thus

catering to the best form of support, many scholar examining strategies of poverty alleviation have

denounced the psychic costs of social stigma and marginalization that are attached to participating in

projects targeting specifically the poor. Indeed, these authors argue, singling out a community is very

likely to generate resentment within the stigmatized community and political rejection from other groups

whose money is invested in programs that dont benefit them (Sen 1995, Scokpol 1991, Besley and

Kanbur 1988, Wilson 1987). By attaching self-sufficiency projects to the notion of resistance and hence

linking directly NGOs beneficiaries to this resistance, the organizations have transformed the task of

service provision from charity into an absolute necessity. The organizations were therefore able to

legitimize and gather support for the targeting process.

In short, the above description of self-sufficiency projects reveals at the micro-scale a model of

services in which ideology is used to facilitate targeting without stigma and encourage residents to

achieve project goals. In addition, the design of self-sufficiency projects highlights the capacity of NGOs

to develop flexible, easily adaptable, and responsive projects that start from local skills and capacities and

build on them successful projects. The capacity of NGOs to develop such projects is tightly connected to

their organizational design. Perhaps no structure reveals the intricacy of the NGOs design in its

decentralization, accessibility, flexibility, and capacity to build a safety net that supports self-sufficiency

and reduces barriers between residents, beneficiaries, and NGO workers as much as the volunteer

sisters. The following section examines in detail the structure of the volunteer sisters. It is presented

here as an illustration of the ideological and structural (agency) tools that explain, to a large extend, the

operational success of these organizations in service provision.


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4. VOLUNTEER SISTERS

The volunteer sisters, orAl Akhawat al Moutataweat in Arabic, form the outreach structure of

the second group of NGOs, the NGOs targeting specific beneficiary categories:Al Imdad,Al Shaheed,

andAl Jareeh. Within each NGO, volunteer sisters are part of the network of social workers whose

primary task is monitoring the NGO-beneficiary relations. The following section describes and analyses

the details of this structure.

Social Workers

The network of social workers in each of the three NGOs that target services is composed of five

or six full-time (male) social workers in addition to over a hundred volunteer women. Men have a well-

defined role: they keep regular office hours inside the NGOs during which they mostly fill-up beneficiary

applications for loans or grants, process, and approve/reject requests. Volunteer sisters have flexible,

open-ended tasks that do not require presence in the offices or specific working hours. Instead, they act as

the informal liaison between social workers inside the organizations and beneficiary families. They are

subdivided, within each organization, in geographic subunits that correspond to the neighborhoods

where each lives. Each of the sub-areas has a head-sister who coordinates the work of her fellow workers

and reports back regularly to the male social workers inside the organization.

Two declared criteria are used to recruit volunteer sisters: They necessarily need to be residents

of the areas where they work and they have to believe in the HizbAllah ideologyprior to working in the

organization. (The latter condition entails a first screening: women have to accept Islamic values as

understood by the political party as well as encourage the resistance, etc.). 19

Task Description

volunteer sisters have a two-fold task: (i) insure a continuous link between each of these NGOs and its

beneficiaries; (ii) act as an outreach structure in the wider communities of the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Both volunteer sisters tasks are extremely flexible and were designed to accommodate for working

times that could be easily switched around to accommodate for the schedules of housewives or

workingwomen to volunteer according to their own priority and time.

19Over the past two years, the structure of the women volunteers in these organizations has been revised due to

challenges in the local community that have led to more inclusive involvement. Non-HizbAllah women were hence

allowed in the organizations, in training programs, teaching positions, etc. While they do not retain, to my

knowledge, the same capacities that these sisters have, they nevertheless indicate a change in the tight control over

who works within these organizations.


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The volunteers first task is to insure a close connection between each beneficiary family and its

donor NGO by coordination between the two. In each of the geographic sub-units of the southern suburb

of Beirut, volunteer sisters visit weekly the NGOs beneficiary families (in their own houses), as long

as they receive subsidies or credit from one of the NGOs. This visit serves to insure the familys proper

reception of allocations and to learn about additional needs the organizations should provide for (e.g.

health problems). Sisters then relate rapidly to the NGOs any problems the family encountered, allowing

for a high and fast responsiveness by easing the communication process.

However, the role of Volunteers Sisters extends beyond the services of the organization, to

include any other matter that could pertain to the familys well-being. Hence, during these weekly

visits, the Sisters often develop personal relationships with the families and learn about problems and

struggles that transcend the NGOs services. Often, they get involved with children schoolwork, romantic

or professional family dilemmas. They have thus somewhat customized the relationship between the

NGOs and the families as they have adapted and catered for the specific needs of beneficiaries. This role

is particularly crucial when a family takes a loan for the execution of a self-sufficiency projects, which

is a micro-credit initiative that encompasses often training and other forms of assistance. Under these

circumstances, the role of a volunteer sister becomes even more important since she is to insure the

familys well being and help it overcome any impediments to the success of its income generation

initiative.

Through these visits and the close relations they develop with families, the sisters have also

collected project suggestions and eventually initiated programs with community members. One such

example isAl Imdads hairdressing training program, described earlier. It was eventually the sisters who

elaborated the proposal and put it forth toAl Imdad. They also lobbied the self-sufficiency representative

inside the NGO to get the training program funded, organized a local small scale temporary training

center in the house of one of the beneficiary families, and trained the seventeen young women who

enrolled in the eight weeks program.One of the volunteer sisters, a hairdresser herself, acted as the

trainer.

The volunteer sisters second task is to reach out for additional NGO beneficiaries. Since

volunteer sisters are necessarily local residents of the sub-neighborhood where they work, they are

immersed in the local networks of social relations on which they can rely in order to identify families in

need or again gather information about subsidies or grant applicants. In that sense, the role of the

volunteer sisters network is crucial in facilitating the difficult task of targeting benefits by developing a

cheap and easy way to identify and assess real needs for potential beneficiaries, a problem most targeted

programs struggle with. In fact, one of the most reported shortfalls of targeted initiatives is precisely the


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cost prohibitive and complex task of determining accurately residents incomes and checking real needs

(Besley and Kanbur 1988). Volunteer sisters allow the NGOs to easily overcome this difficulty.

Origins of the volunteer sisters

Although the NGOs to which volunteer sisters are affiliated are modeled after and stillaffiliated to Iranian mother institutions, the structure of volunteer sisters itself does not exist from the

original Iranian model. (While Iran counts such a women-network of service providers, these are notaffiliated to any of the Iranian mother institutions ofAl Imadad,Al Shaheed, orAl Jareeh.) In fact, this

structure presents an example of a clear departure from the original mother institutions to adapt to thelocal Lebanese context.

WhenAl Imdad launched its operations in 1987, social workers, including volunteers, were all

men and no woman was allowed to join the NGOs social workers section. During my interviews with

social workers in the organization, I learned that the establishment of this structure among Lebanese

NGOs was a major subject of contention between the IranianAl Imdad mother institution and itsLebanese offshoot. Indeed, when they started going around houses beginning 1989, NGO male workers

felt they needed women who, according to one of them, could relate more readily to fellow mothers,

sisters, and friends. However, he added, the Iranian Mother institution did not immediately acceptenrolling women as part of the organization as this structure was not part of the Mother institution. It took

us a year to convince them it was totally appropriate to include volunteer sisters. In short, the Iranianmother institutions had to reevaluate their model and reshape their structures according to local needs.While information about the negotiation process was not readily available, the existence of this dialogue

by itself and the development of the volunteer sisters as a central structure of the NGOs clearly indicate

that interaction and feedback from local conditions is an essential element of how the organizations

developed. It is even more clear today as increasing challenges, coming particularly from communitymembers who want to participate in NGO activities without abiding by the political ideology (becausethey want to support resistance activities or help community members) and the need for more members,

force on these organizations more inclusive standards.

In addition to the two organizational tasks, sisters, by virtue of their affiliation toHizbAllah, also

relay information about the political partys events. Hence, volunteer sisters, when they visit families,

inform them ofHizbAllahpublic events, such as political rallies or dinner banquets. We act as a two

ways information channel, a volunteer sister explained. We inform the NGO of the beneficiaries

needs and we inform the families we visit ofHizbAllahs activities. This task, while often unmentioned

in NGOs, attests of the open political activities that NGOs help channel and highlight, once again, the

blurred divisions between politics and service provision. This political messenger task is however more

elaborate and subtle then it first appears. The next section details the role of politics and the way they

influence the performance of volunteer sisters.

Politics, especially in the form of ideology, play a central role in the activities of Volunteer sisters

and influence their performance in several ways. Indeed, the relationship of NGOs toHizbAllahallows

an affiliation and a closeness to its activities that acts as major assets for organizational performance,

especially when this affiliation acts as a motivation for sisters to enroll and volunteer to work with

dedication in what some of them perceive as a prestigious task. While these observations cannot be

enlarged to include all volunteers, they appear to be true for many of them.


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First, the political ideology was used to develop a prestigious image for these NGOs that acted as

a major incentive for many NGO members to volunteer time and effort for the NGOs. Indeed, while all

sisters declare humanitarian motivations to their enrollment, most also resolutely declare political ones.

This is not surprising since all sisters are recruited directly from the HizbAllah women, the women

enrolled as volunteers in the social sections ofHizbAllah and hence screened by the party and all have

already openly affiliated to a political mission prior to their involvement with the NGOs.

In order to create the prestigious image, the organizations have portrayed themselves as

participating in the resistance lead byHizbAllah and label many of their activities in the same mold of

resistance and social justice. While the political party conducts mostly the armed resistance, the

organizations support its activities by building a resistance society that is able to resist forms of

oppression. Hence, volunteering for any of these NGOs becomes a prestigious activity that bestows part

of their prestige on sisters and encouraged them to participate in these tasks.

Second, the political ideology also generates among sisters a sense of mission that encourages

them to participate actively within the NGO structures. When interviewing sisters, many among them

talked of duty, obligation, responsibility, or urge in participating in NGO activities. The

following quotes give an idea of the sisters motivations: I love the idea of giving and sharing and I feel

the urge to do it. This is why I got enrolled. I will never leave the organization unless I feel I am

personally unable to fulfill my tasks dutifully, one of them said. Another said: It is our duty to

participate in the resistance society.

The sense of mission is a common rhetoric in the development literature. Central figures in

organizational analysis, such as Wilson, have argued that a sense of mission provides an organization

with the basis for recruiting and socializing new members and relieves administrators from the burden of

creating incentives. In short, the sense of mission generates commitment and enthusiasm for the

employees and a strong incentive for good performance (Wilson 1989). The sisters often said that the

NGOs provided them with an effective space to channel their sense of mission: the duty to support the

military activities against Israel, fight oppression, or, more simply, be religiously committed to helping

others.

It is important to note that the sense of mission is not particular to volunteer sisters. Indeed,

many other NGO workers confirmed this idea. One of them, Hajj Ali Zein, inJihad Al Binaa told us the

highest form of commitment is military resistance. It then trickles down to us in all these organizations.

We all try to help as much as we can. Another worker in the same organization told us the presence of

resistance is psychologically important to us employees inJihad Al Binaa. It definitely energizes us. In

short, the notion of resistance has helped these NGOs to switch from their image of one of many charities


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to an organized structure of resistance that appeals to members of the local community precisely because

it fights their same perceived oppressors.

Third, the political ideology, seeping into dress codes, behavioral attitudes, and language serves

as a major asset towards building an organizational culture strongly tied to the mission and goals of the

political party. For instance, since volunteer sisters are members ofHizbAllah, they have all adopted

the dress code that was ruled by a jurisdiction (fatwa) of the late Imam Khomeini, which, in addition to

the traditional veil, requires women to cover chin and forehead. Women have also adopted the traditional

Islamic clothing: They wear long, formless, dark colored dresses and cover entirely arms and legs. The

sisters have also all adopted the behavioral attitudes, ascribed to Islam: they dont shake hands with men

and observe strict segregation with members of the opposite sex.

This dress code is particularly important for the volunteer sisters who are highly visible in the

society. Indeed, through their dress code, they already embody a visual symbolic representation of the

political ideology they promote. The volunteer sisters are particularly aware of this aspect of their task

and proudly endorse it. We constitute a main branch within the large [Islamic resistance] movement. The

way we are dressed, the way we look, the way we talk are all indicators of our political commitment.

When people see us, they often ask aboutHizbAllahs resistance operations, for example.

Finally, the sisters have adopted a language, perpetuated by the political party, and inspired again

by the Islamic dynamic and the culture of resistance. It starts with the greeting formula: alsalam

alaikum,(Peace be upon you), systematically used even in response to the other more casual formulas

used elsewhere in the city. It however builds into a much larger language adopted from the political

ideology of the Islamic dynamic. They, for example, have relabeled poverty as the outcome of state

discriminatory policies rather then poor peoples lack of talents. However, the victims of oppressive

structures are not hopeless, desperate individuals but rather active subjects who are resisting oppression

they are only perceived as weak (mustadafeen). They therefore can enroll in organizations, and in

doing so join a resistance society which fights the oppression and misery heaped on them by unjust

social structures. This new language is above all challenging peoples perceptions and hopelessness

consciously through rewording and redefining their position and role in the society.

.

5. CONCLUSION

This paper has examined the role of Islamic Resistance Organizations in the Southern suburbs of

Beirut, Lebanon. After a brief general description of the geographic and political context of the subject,

the study has focused self-sufficiency projects and the volunteer sisters structures as places to examine

the way organizational agency and ideology affect NGO projects and NGO design.


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From the examples, it is clear that both political ideology and the organizational ideology play

central roles in the way the organization undertake their service provision.

In terms of agency, the highly decentralized, flexible, and easily accessible structures are main

explanations of the NGOs success. First, the NGOs highly decentralized structures allow for volunteer

sisters and self-sufficiency workers, themselves residents of the area, to choose and implement projects

and explain hence the unusual responsiveness of these NGOs and their capacity to build in on residents

local skills when they design interventions. In addition, the volunteer sisters reveal the flexibility of the

organizations both internally, in catering for a flexible schedule that even busy women can abide by to a

flexible NGO-residents relation that caters for every familys crisis at its own pace. Finally, the recurrent

presence of NGO members in the beneficiarys home and their presence as residents of the local

neighborhoods facilitates access to NGOs and blurs the boundaries between organizations and residents.

These two processes were carried out simultaneously and together allowed the organizations to

build the relationship of trust and cooperation it was able to achieve with the community.

Before finishing, however, it is important to highlight that the way these organizations have used

ideology, while extremely successful in promoting their work, can also be described as somewhat

exclusive and problematic. Indeed, the same literature that praises the sense of mission and the

organizational culture often elaborates on the difficulties of instilling a sense of mission and an

organizational culture. Wilson, for one, describes particular examples of organizations such as the FBI

and the trouble they went through for instilling this mission (Wilson 1985 : 91-110). Islamic NGOs did

not have to go through the same process. They have received this culture and mission from an elaborated

existing political ideology. If this political ideology facilitated the process of culture building, it however

also had major drawbacks. Indeed, many residents refuse to receive the NGOs services, precisely because

they had such an obvious political image. This is especially the case with the targeted initiatives that

entail a strong personalized relation with the organization. Even more pronounced then this voluntary

self-exclusion is the explicit process that excludes from the web of the NGO workers all people who are

not willing to abide by the religious commitments of the NGOs, which include clothing, language, and

other restrictions. In fact, the homogenization of the city during the civil war has allowed suspending this

problem currently, since almost exclusively Shiite residents live in the areas where these NGOs provide

services. There is therefore no real pressure from local residents who are explicitly excluded. However, if

the situation was to change, the strong and exclusive ideology of these NGOs could become a serious

impediment to their relations with the community.


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ACNKOWLEGMENTS

Besides all NGO workers and community members who took the time to listen to my questions and

explain their work, my special thanks go to Alan Shihadeh, Meenu Tewari, and Karim Kobeissi for

comments on earlier drafts of this paper. All mistakes and omissions remain, of course, entirely mine.


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Rise of Civil Society: A Symposium Celebrating the Planning Career of John Friedmann, Los Angeles.

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agency and ideology in the service provision of islamic organizations in the southern suburb of...

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